Maximizing my Battle Cleric's potential!

[ReD_Exorcist]

So i'm starting a campaign with my friends, its going to be me as a Battle Cleric, we have a Rogue and my DM is going to be a support druid.

I want to figure out the best way of making my Battle Cleric, We are using 3.5. The DM said heyll let us use any book that he approves of first.

I was thinking of going a dual wielding Cleric style player, Any ideas of whats better to play as or how to make a Dual Wielding Battle Cleric work in its full potential?

Forgot to mention this but I am a Lesser Aasimar and here is my ability scores

STR: 14
DEX: 10
CON: 16
INT: 10
WIS: 16
CHA: 16

One last thing to mention. My DM is starting us off with 13,0000 gold what should I spend it on?
Starting at level 6

[Optimator]

Dual-wielding is a TERRIBLE idea. First off, you need a free hand to cast. That means a light shield or a two-handed weapon is needed. Furthermore, most self-buffs you can give yourself will benefit the two-handed route more. Finally, you desperately need as many feats as you can and dual-wielding sets feats on fire. Stay Away!

You could do the Somatic Weaponry feat but that's another feat wasted.

[ReD_Exorcist]

Alright so scratch the dual wielding idea, I want my main weapon to be a long sword though since that is my dietys Favorited weapon (Corellon is my deity by the way)

[MeeposFire]

If you were going to dual wield (and I agree with the above that it is very costly for small gain) I would go with shield bashing. You can get a spiked heavy shield that leaves a hand free, pick up some of the shield feats especially from the PHB 2 (allows for effective TWF with a heavy shield and imp shield bash allows you to bash and keep the shield bonus), and the damage can be decent.

[Curmudgeon]

You can get a spiked heavy shield that leaves a hand free
No, you can't.
Shield, Heavy, Wooden or Steel

You strap a shield to your forearm and grip it with your hand. A heavy shield is so heavy that you can’t use your shield hand for anything else.

[MeeposFire]

No, you can't.

Yes you can though I forget it requires a feat to be proficient so it makes it not worth it in the end but all you need is a Shield Gauntlet from Races of Stone which allows you to cast spells and it is a heavy shield with an open hand (well mostly open you can't wield weapons and the like).

Actually if it is mithril you may not need the extreme shield proficiency as that will eliminate the armor check penalty and thus removes the primary problem for lack of proficiency I believe (unless I am forgetting something).

[yoshi67]

I've played with some DMs who didn't bother with the shield/free hand thing, saying as long as you can wiggle your fingers you can cast spells. Against the rules, but saves you from using RoS to wield a decent shield.

If you can afford it, mithral fullplate is a cleric's best friend, unless you want to get some specialty armor (celestial, etc.) Might want to see if the DM is gonna enforce the armor-equipping time. I think it takes 4 minutes to put on fullplate alone. Most of the DMs I've played with don't bother as its assumed you put it on when you wake up and they tend not to pop surprise encounters on us at night. If your DM does enforce dressing time and/or likes to surprise the group at night, look up the Called armor enchantment. In 1 standard action your armor teleports to your body like Ironman suiting up. Very useful.

I think Complete Champion laid rules for sanctifying objects. You pay 50gp and a high level priest blesses it and it becomes a holy symbol. Having a blessed shield that acts as a holy symbol means never having to worry about finding it/holding it when turning since you're always carrying it.

[ReD_Exorcist]

The problem with Full Plate armor though is that it reduces my speed to 20 ft and I feel like that well screw me over a lot. Does mithril raise your max speed that the full plate allows?

[yoshi67]

Mithral is lighter than steel so any armor made out of mithral acts as one class less and half weight. So mithral fulllplate is half weight, treated as medium armor, increases max Dex bonus (+2), reduces armor check penalty, and reduces arcane spell failure chance (10%). You still have decreased movement speed, but as a battle cleric it shouldn't matter since your buffing yourself. Clerics get armor proficiency so they can stay in the middle of fights longer to buff/heal/whatever you do. You don't have to wear fullplate, in fact I've seen arguments that anything better than mithral breastplate is a waste as you can get additional AC cheaper from other means. I just like wearing fullplate since it seems that's what the writers were intending.

[graeylin]

when you get to 6th level or so, take a look at prestige paladin (UA). Get your mounted combat feat, do your skills and qualify.
Then, take 1 level of Prestige Paladin. Then, take the feat battle blessing. Even if you never ride a horse, the feat to qualify for PP is worth it for battle blessing.

[Ellowryn]

What level are you starting at? That will give us a better picture of what needs to be don't to get you started. For armor the Luminous armor line with a metamagic rod of extend will get you plate armor with no speed reduction by level 7, and you can bump the AC up by 2 if you grab a level of Paragnostic Apostle. Devine Metamagic Persist is going to be awesome for you as it improves your BaB to your character level, increase your strength and size with Righteous Might, adn if you want to go the Clostered Cleric route you can even get the Knowledge Devotion Feat for free.